Glyphosate returns to Colombia a decade after its ban. The government of Gustavo Petro confirmed on Monday that it would begin fumigation with this herbicide to combat coca crops, after months of reflection on a measure that the current president had harshly criticized in the past. This was announced by the Minister of Justice in charge, Andrés Idárraga, who explained that “spraying controlled by drones” will be carried out, mainly in areas where illegal armed groups force farmers to plant coca. A modality which is located in a gray area, since aerial spreading is prohibited by the Constitutional Court, and the Government affirms that, despite the use of drones, it is ground fumigation.
“This has nothing to do with the past,” assured the minister during the press conference, trying to anticipate criticism concerning the resumption of an old formula that Colombia had suspended in 2015 on the recommendation of the World Health Organization, which had classified glyphosate as potentially carcinogenic. According to the strategy explained by Idárraga, the drones will be at a maximum height of 1.5 meters above the crop, which, according to him, would guarantee “that the chemical does not reach where it should not go, but up to the coca leaf.” With this method, he added, one hectare of coca would be eradicated in 30 minutes.
The Government, according to the minister’s statements, includes this modality in the land spraying program. This can be achieved through a permit issued by the National Environmental Licensing Authority (NALA) in 2016, which envisages “low-altitude remote-controlled ground spraying equipment at canopy level”, which would be the drones the government would use. So, spraying will begin this week, as Idárraga announced. “No later than Thursday or Friday, the national police will begin their operations,” he announced, confirming that they will begin in the department of Cauca, one of the areas most affected by the armed conflict, and especially in recent weeks by attacks by ex-FARC dissidents.
The Petro government is resuming this old and questioned strategy amid escalating pressure both internally and externally to show results in its drug policy and public order policy. Just in recent weeks, the ELN guerrillas have declared a national armed strike; This same group carried out an attack in which they murdered seven soldiers in Aguachica (Cesar); A FARC dissident attacked the municipality of Buenos Aires, in the Cauca region, for 12 hours, leaving two police officers dead; and a group of 18 soldiers were arrested in the department of Chocó. Internationally, US President Donald Trump has for months called Petro a “drug trafficking leader”, withdrew Colombia’s certification as an anti-drug trafficking country and put the president and his close associates on the Clinton list. At the same time, Colombia’s coca crops are reaching historic highs, with more than 260,000 hectares planted across the country, and the government is in conflict with the UN over cocaine production figures in the country under its administration.
With this decision, the president adopts a strategy that he has long criticized, even when he was already head of state. Last April, when it began to emerge that the government was considering the idea of resuming glyphosate, Petro himself dismissed the idea: “There will be no aerial spraying; The government’s program is for farmers who want to eradicate their coca leaf crops to be paid for replacement with prosperity-generating agro-industrial crops. And there he declares: “The program consists of “uprooting” the bushes, which is more permanent and healthier than fumigating the leaves and stems.
Isabel Pereira, coordinator of the medicines sector at the Dejusticia study center, seriously doubts that the authorization issued by ANLA in 2016 authorizes the drone modality. It maintains that, in any case, it must have authorization confirming that the height of 1.5 meters is valid for it to be considered a land application. The expert also questions the main argument used by the government, according to which it will implement this strategy only in areas where armed groups “instrumentalize” peasants. “How can they verify that there is instrumentalization? Coca culture is also a culture of survival, where there is not always instrumentalization; what they do is concentrate the effort on those who have the least profit in the drug trafficking chain,” he says.
With the implementation of this strategy, it is a left-wing government that resumes glyphosate spraying in Colombia, a modality traditionally opposed by the left and the entire peasant and coca grower movement which, in fact, voted for Petro. His predecessor, the right-wing Iván Duque, political godson of Álvaro Uribe, tried throughout his mandate to return to glyphosate, but was unable to comply with the requirements demanded by the Constitutional Court to do so, among other things due to the legal mobilization of social organizations that blocked all avenues. The Duque government found itself with planes parked and pilots ready to spray glyphosate. The Petro government is bringing it back, this time in the form of drones.
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